Why Walt Would Have Loved Disney's High School Musical

No other entertainment property has made me feel more out-of-touch than the make-your-teeth-ache-it's-so-sweet High School Musical movie that premiered on the Disney Channel 18 months ago, and has since become the legend of text messages everywhere. Just how popular is it? A small sample: this clip from the movie has been viewed more than 12 million times on YouTube.

Today, as almost any teen or tween or even toddler call tell you, sees the debut of its sequel. The original movie cost $4.2 million to make, the sequel $7 million, and the Wall Street Journal today writes that the franchise is expected to generate "a total of $100 million in profit in 2006 and 2007." Franchise is the key word, here, and this is why old Walt Disney would have loved High School Musical. Back in the 1930s in the heyday of the studio system, Disney was scene as an outsider who didn't even distribute his own movies (RKO did it for him), have any stars under contract or own any theaters. While most studios made their money from ticket sales, he made his cash, in part, by licensing Mickey and his other characters for toys, books, to newspapers, etc. Walt also believed that kids, not adults, could drive box office, and his Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first film in history to gross $100 million and to have a soundtrack. He also wasn't scared of a new invention called television, realizing that real profits came from establishing an intellectual property that could be licensed to other media platforms over a long period of time. Which is exactly why High School Musical is such a financial success. From the WSJ:

That movie has drawn 200 million TV viewers world-wide and spawned a DVD, a chart-topping CD, a concert tour, school productions, a stage musical, a book series, and stationery. Disney plans to use the second movie to spin off a global ice tour, new school productions, iPod accessories, a karaoke video game, fragrances, cosmetics and musical handbags.

In a departure from previous franchises, Disney already has plans to make local-language versions of the movie with new casts in several countries including India, Russia, and Latin America.

A big test of the property's staying power will come in 2008, when a third U.S. movie is expected to be released in theaters rather than on the Disney Channel. While Disney hopes the movie will feature the entire original cast, it will also introduce new characters that could carry the franchise forward, according to people familiar with the situation. It will be a natural time to introduce a new generation of characters, given that the film is built around graduation.